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THE ENDING OF THE STORY
THE ENDING OF THE STORY I cannot drop this topic without urging the student to study carefully the maturer work of O. Henry, who surpasses all writers past and present in his mastery of the direct denouement. What ahost of his complications do not solve themselves until the last fifty words!— WALTER B. PrnaN, The Art and Business of Story Writing. In a large sense, the ending generally includes three parts: the full climax, the denouement, and the actual conclusion. Though the short-story may open at the beginning, the middle, or the end, there is only one legitimate place for its close, that is, immediately after the high-water-mark of greatest interest in the plot, known as the climax. " Climax," in the original Greek, meant a ladder, but as applied to narration it signifies the topmost rung of this ladder, or "the highest point of anything reached by gradual ascent."' In the anecdote the time to stop is when you have made the "point," in the fable when you have illustrated the moral; so in the short-story the time to stop is when the story is told, the "point" is made, the climax is reached. Since, however, the short- story is a longer and more highly developed literary form than either the anecdote or the fable, a brief denouement is generally necessary. "Denouement" means the untying, and the orthodox denouement is the final unravelling of the complications, and its proper place is immediately following the climax. In some cases the climax and the denouement are identical, as in Maupassant's "The Necklace." In stories where the mystery is unsolved, as in Hawthome's "The White Old Maid," the denouement is necessarily absent. After the denouement there may be a brief word of conclusion, to avoid the possibility of abruptness — the shock of a sudden leave-taking, as it were, on the part of the author. But it must be remembered that as a rule the story ends when the plot is complete, and that the denouement and conclusion must move swiftly. The Happy Ending Long ago, the ancient Greeks, in the best period of their art, refused to portray grief or suffering of any kind, because they regarded these phases of life as abnormal and transient, and therefore not fit to be given permanent form. Today the modern Americans like happy endings to stories — they like the lovers to marry, and the sick folks to get well, and the poor ones to have their salaries raised, and young people of all ages to go on trips to Europe. So, man's instincts, in ancient and modern times, seek happiness as the normal and usual condition, and tacitly decide that to be unhappy is as unnatural as to be sick or deformed. The tragic ending is an effort to depict things as they are, rather than as they ought to be. Wise men have said that the great tragedies of human life are the result of some defect of character —hence, inevitable — and the thoughtful reader finds in them a certain satisfaction for his sense of justice. Where the tragedy is one of circumstance rather than of character, as in Hawthome's "The Ambitious Guest," the pleasure afforded to the reader will result from contrast, and from the welling-up of his sympathies. But whether the story ends happily or unhappily, the writer must remember that he has to satisfy his reader — either by the contagious joyousness of the ending, or by a kind of intellectual satisfaction in its rightness, or by the pleasure of an opportunity to overflow with sympathy. Importance of end FIRST impressions and last impressions are generally the most definite; first, because the mind is free and ready to receive them; last, because nothing may follow to modify or to change them. It is natural, therefore, that the beginning and the end of any discourse are important structurally, and that of the two, end deserves the more careful handling. In the Short-story, end is far more important than is beginning; it marks the point of deepest impression. From the start, the end is kept in view. To it, one looks with greatest expectation. For it, all the momentum of the story gathers. It is not a summation as is the end of a debate; it is rather the final enforcement of the single effect. If the end is sharp, it will intensify the single impression; if it is weak, it may dissipate it and leave the reader disappointed. A story should never promise more than it can fulfil. Unless the end is satisfactory, the whole story fails. A piece of pottery may be artistically modeled, but if it breaks in the last burning, it is worse than useless, for it represents waste. Unless a story fulfils one's expectations, it is but a waste of time and energy. It is the function of the end not only to bring a story to a fitting close, but to fill it out to completeness by presenting the single impression in its final intensity. Since the point of a story marks the climax of interest, it is evident that the conclusion must not be long delayed after the point has been reached. If the story has been well told, the point marks the natural conclusion, and a sentence or two will serve to bring a very short story to a satisfactory end. If a suitable ending does not suggest itself, it is better to omit the conclusion altogether than to construct a forced or flowery one. The end of the plot. a striking, surprising, yet natural climax at the close of the story, for when once the high point has been reached, do not dawdle, but end swiftly. Moralizing and belated explanations at the dose of a plot are like soup after dessert Let the closing scene be the logical, though generally the unexpected, outcome of the crisis; let it be a simple, compact, concentrated scene and not a complex one which may scatter interest and awaken other questions; let it be free of all taint of displeasing anticlimax; and let it be your best possible work. Types of ends in a short story